TITLE:
Pharmacists’ Knowledge, Attitudes and Beliefs Regarding Intervention for Prescription Medicines Abuse
AUTHORS:
Sadia Shakeel, Wajiha Iffat, Sadaf Ibrahim, Shehla Imam
KEYWORDS:
Prescription Medicine Abuse, Knowledge, Attitude, Pharmacist, Pakistan
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Access Library Journal,
Vol.2 No.11,
November
11,
2015
ABSTRACT: Background: Abuse of medicines is becoming a serious problem in many
parts of the world, with negative consequences ranging from addiction,
psychosis, cardiovascular complications, and premature deaths from unintentional
overdose. In Pakistan, prescription drugs, which are misused or abused by some
patients, are often obtained from pharmacies. However, intervention for prescription
drugs misuse has not been tested in this setting. Objectives: The objective of
the study was to assess knowledge, perception and attitudes regarding
interventions towards the abuse of prescription medicines (PM) among practicing
pharmacists in Pakistan. Materials and Methods: This transversal study was
conducted from June to September 2015 by adopting a pre validated questionnaire
distributed to practicing pharmacists in different private and public sector
hospitals of Karachi. Descriptive statistics were used to demonstrate participants’
demographic information and their response to the questionnaire items. Pearson’s
chi-squared test was executed to evaluate the association of gender, age, organization,
and experience of pharmacists with their response. A p value